Chapter 2 Diamond|One

It's cold. Ciel thought as she tried to drag her quilt closer. Why is it so cold? I didn't even switch on the air con!

She was again attempting to drag her quilt back when she realized something strange. She was lying on ice cold and muddy ground, not her bed back at her rented room. She snapped open her eyes to find snow fluttering down.

"I... I must be dreaming." Ciel laugh halfheartedly and tried to pinch herself with her fingers. "Ouch... It's real? Oh gosh... why was I here? This is literally in the middle of nowhere!" Ciel looked around to find herself surrounded by snow and trees.

"And it should be summer not winter! I was kidnapped and got thrown to the other side of the world? How did this happen? This doesn't even make sense!" Ciel ran her hand through her hairs in frustration when she realized her shoulder length ash gray hair has turned into waist length brown hair. She widened her eyes in surprise. At the same time, she realized she was wearing a dress with bodice. A dress you found wearing by Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

"Hello~ This isn't funny. Alex, Artemis, Irene? Come on! This isn't the time to play a prank! I'm freezing to death!" She shook her hands at thin air, hoping in any seconds her housemates would jump out and laughed at her. But all she heard were echoes of her own voice.

Dejected, she slowly began to understand what a dire situation she was in. It's no use sitting here, freezing to death, she thought to herself. She'd better walk out of this forest before she froze to death or the snow buried her.

Ciel brushed off the snow on her hair and slowly stood up with the help of the tree she was next to. That was when she found out the bracelet circling her left wrist. It looked really familiar. No, it was the exact copy of one of the four bracelets she bought from the old lady yesterday.

She kept one of the bracelets and distributed the remaining three to her three housemates respectively. They all put the bracelet on immediately, all taking an immediate liking of it, with the exception of Irene who was still locked in her room studying for her last final.

Ciel remembered wearing the bracelet to bed. So was this bracelet the reason she was transported to this weird place? She tried rubbing the butterfly pendant on the bracelet, but nothing happened. She tried taking the bracelet off for inspection, but she found out she was not able to! The clasp disappeared!

"What kind of magic is that? Where's the clasp?" She cried in frustration as she shivered in cold. "Let me get out of this freezing hell first."

She was trekking along the snow filled road for hours when she heard a sound other than her own footsteps. She turned around just in time to find a carriage driving towards her.

A carriage! Just where in time was I transported to? Ciel thought to herself. But whatever, let me find help first.

She waved her hand vigorously in front of her, trying to get the driver's attention. Luckily, after a moment, the carriage stopped next to her. A fit of coughing drifted out from the carriage. When the coughing died down, the door of the carriage swung open.

Inside the carriage were two men. The one who opened the door was obviously the valet of the other man in the carriage. The master had sculpture like features. His handsomeness was not only not marred by the dark circles under his eyes or paleness of his face, but gave him a fragile, vampire-like feel. Ciel was stunned by his appearance.

"Good day, lady, " the master said softly with a gentlemanly smile.

Ciel nodded silently, still blinded by his handsomeness.

"Do I have the pleasure to offer you a ride to town?"

The mention of a ride to town broke Ciel from her trance. She once again returned to her level headed self.

"That would be great, Sir. Thank you so much. But at the moment, I regret to say I don't have much to offer you back."

"That's fine..." the master broke into a fit of coughing again. "There's nothing you have to be sorry of, it's me who offered you a ride to begin with. Do come in, it's cold outside."

Ciel knew that she should be cautious at times like this. It's always dangerous getting onto a stranger's car, or carriage. But she had no choice now. It's either getting into a stranger's carriage or freezing to death. And at the moment this stranger looked pretty noble and gentlemanly.

You know most bad guys look like that at first, muttered Ciel to herself.

"Where are you staying at the moment, Miss Vincet?" Lord Lambert, whose title was generously supplied by his lord's valet, asked.

At that moment, there's one painful second Ciel wished to tell Lord Lambert that she had lost her memory in some fateful incident like how those heroines did when they got transported to another world. Then maybe Lord Lambert would offer to help her out and they would fall madly in love just like what would happen in stories. And turned out she's his fiancee he had never seen who had lost her memory.

Of course all that were just wishful thinking. One could dream!

Ciel, who prided vain and dignity above anything else, said, "My lord, I am planning to seek apprenticeship in town. I am an art student."

"Apprenticeship?" Lord Lambert asked good naturedly. "I might know a place that's suitable for you." He smiled mysteriously.

And that began Ciel's life as an apprentice mask maker.